Celebrating broking excellence: Finalists from the Community Excellence award

Finalist: Jolene Son

Jolene shared her story of helping a client finalise a claim for a building in Melbourne’s Chinatown.

The claim took her three years and two months to finalise the claim. She faced several challenges with this claim, with COVID-19 lockdowns holding up the claim, creating labour shortages and OH&S compliance management issues. The building was eventually completed in June 2022, with Jolene ultimately winning the trust and loyalty of the client.

“This was the experience that I’ve learnt the most from, as I had the privilege to work with and learn from industry experts such as the assessor, senior claim officer, the claim preparer, the quantity surveyor and the builder. The knowledge I gained has equipped me better in handling future claims.

“I was able to strive in an unprecedent time, especially as I started my own business on 1 November 2021 after taking over the book of business from a previous practice. I was able to educate the client as the claim progressed, and the covers and sum insured we arranged in the client’s insurance program were adequate and serves its purpose.

“I hope I can contribute more to the community I work in by educating the clients and their associates about insurance, so as to work towards a resilient community.

Finalist: Rebecca Gilbert

Rebecca shared her story of helping a client through the 2019 Townsville floods.

“The Harpers had been my client for many years and I was able to help them with their business in their home that was unfortunately inundated with floodwater. I was able to have an assessor out and had their home and their business stripped within seven days. Ultimately, they were back within three months. I also read the policy weighting and ensured that they actually had flood cover and there had been no under-insurance clause, which no one in their shopping centre for their business had.

“We did have a challenge along the way – we were able to actually see that their home was built on wet by the builder and wasn’t actually built correctly. We were able to get professionals in to rectify the issue. For me, this is one event that I will never forget. The client said that I had changed their lives forever through the professional help and the assistance that I was able to give them at the time. And honestly, for them to be able to reopen and have fresh food supplies for their community as well, with something that was so important.”

Winner: Vanessa Hilton

Vanessa shared her experience of helping the Cobargo community, which was impacted by bushfires in 2019.

While Vanessa had moved to Brisbane earlier in the year, she didn’t hesitate to assist with a client called for her to help members of the Cobargo community who were struggling to push their claims there.

“Trying to help people when they didn’t have access to computers, couldn’t print out the emails they were receiving from their insurers, insurers being too hard to contact for these people, some of which only lost their belongings in a car, to others that lost entire homes, was really tricky. I was so lucky that I had the time and ability to go through their policies and explain what they could and could not cover, explain why the insurers were looking to settle early and talk them through their grief. Making such huge decisions for themselves was so hard and it was challenging for me to listen to their stories, as I tend to be a little too empathetic sometimes, so I really felt their grief.

“I would like to think that by explaining the process, helping these people understand how the cover worked, talking them through why their belongings in the car might not be covered etc. helped to ease at least a small portion of the burden they were carrying at the time. Every single person that I spoke to, no matter how large or small their loss was, always said that “there was someone else worse off”, so for me personally, it reminded me of how stoic the people in the country are.

“The most memorable outcome for me was that I got to see how strong community ties are and I look forward to visiting the Southern NSW coast again in the future when everything is rebuilt.”

Read more about Vanessa’s win here.